Malaysia
Singapore
Thailand
Soup Dayz is known for serving individual hotpots with your pick-and-choose ingredients. Since then, they’ve recently relocated from their Novena branch and set up shop at 111 Somerset.
Simplifying the process from their previous location, where you could mix and match your ingredients, their new spot now offers a convenient set deal— just choose from one of their 5 ingredient sets and place your order.
After that, choose your carbs and take your pick from their 18 soup bases – Peppercorn, Tangy Tomato and Golden Pumpkin Soup. Moreover, they also have 4 variations of mala bases; Light Spicy, Signature Spicy, Creamy Numbling and Homemade Spicy Soup.
Of course, if you want your dish to be more customisable, you can also choose from a variety of add-on ingredients. The best part? Their soups contain no added MSG – so you can enjoy your hotpot guilt-free!
What I tried at Soup Dayz
I started with the Pork Set (S$7.90) with the Light Spicy Soup. Ingredients-wise, the set included luncheon meat, pork slices, and you mai cai (aka Chinese lettuce), with glass noodles as the choice of carbs.
If anyone needs to learn how to like and appreciate mala, this is the broth to start with. While it did possess the spicy, numbing qualities of traditional mala, it was not overwhelming like a typical conventional broth— in fact, all you xiao la lovers would definitely enjoy this.
The pork slices and luncheon meat were well cooked while the you mai cai maintained its crunch and freshness.
Moving on to the second bowl, they served me the Vegetable Set (S$6.90) with the Original Broth – essentially a pork bone broth. This set included a medley of vegetarian favourites such as spinach, Chinese cabbage, enoki mushrooms and my personal favourite, fried beancurd skin.
The broth was rich, creamy, robust, and heartwarming. Honestly, I’m glad that I got the vegetable set for this— the meat options might have been too heavy. Moreover, I added instant noodles, and it just felt like I was eating the healthiest bowl of ramen with this dish.
The vegetables were nice and crunchy, while the enoki mushrooms added a fun texture. Best of all, the fried beancurd skin absorbed the broth beautifully, and every bite of the skin burst with an explosion of flavours. Out of the non-spicy broths, this was definitely my favourite.
Hotpot lovers, there’s a new hotpot stall in Bugis to add to your list
Next up was the Beef Set (S$8.90) with the Signature Spicy Soup. The set included beef slices, spinach, and oyster mushrooms. This broth was the true essence of mala in a bowl. Its characteristic spicy and numbing flavour profile was present, but not overpowering. If your spice tolerance is high (like mine), you could easily slurp this down.
This also came with instant noodles, which soaked up the rich flavours of the soup with every slurp. The beef slices and the oyster mushrooms were nice and chewy, with the spinach adding a refreshing crunch to the dish.
Moving to another non-spicy broth, I was treated to the Chicken Set (S$7.90) in the Tangy Tomato Soup. This set came with chicken chunks, broccoli and crab sticks.
While I was confused about why crab sticks would be in a chicken set, it wasn’t such a dealbreaker personally. I was given ban mian with this dish, which worked really well as the noodles maintained a chewy and firm texture. The soup itself was definitely on the thicker side. Flavour-wise, it was nice and tangy – making this a comforting bowl on a cold rainy day.
The second-last item on the menu (and at this point, I was really pushing my stomach to the brink) was the Seafood Set (S$9.90) with the Homemade Spicy Soup. This one had dory fish, enoki mushrooms, you mai cai, and grey prawns, with the choice of carbs being spinach noodles.
This was my favourite of the spicy broths. It was similar to the Signature Spicy broth but a creamier version. It still possessed the spicy, numbing qualities, but something about the creaminess made it slightly sweeter. If my stomach wasn’t on the brink of exploding, I would’ve definitely clean-swept this bowl.
Not to mention how well-cooked the seafood was here – the fish was incredibly flaky and soft, and the grey prawns were plump and juicy.
Last but not least, I was presented with the Creamy Numbing Soup. In this case, they threw in some of the add-on ingredients such as cheese tofu (S$1.50), fish ball roe (S$1.50) and cheese chicken balls (S$1.50) for a more customised experience.
I was asked to eat this last as the owner mentioned that it is incredibly numbing, and eating it before the other dishes could affect my taste buds’ ability to judge the other dishes fairly. While taking my first bite, I thought that it was pretty mild; however, I was oh-so-wrong.
While not immediate, the numbing sensation does creep up on you as you continue to dig into this dish. The ingredients also added to the experience with the cheese tofu and cheese chicken ball, somewhat neutralising the spiciness with their little cheesy pockets.
Final thoughts
Despite trying quite a handful of soup bases, I have barely scratched the surface of what they have to offer. Given the price point for a solo hotpot dish right in the middle of the town area? I don’t think I would find a better deal than this right here!
In addition, if you’re looking to cool down after all the hot and spicy goodness, they have a dessert branch next door, Sweet Dayz, serving up cold, refreshing shaved ice.
Expected damage: S$7 – S$15 per pax
* This post is brought to you in partnership with Soup Dayz.
Shiok! Hotpot: Charcoal claypot makes own collagen, serves unique prawn collagen broth & more
